Will Hollywood Become The Next Publisher's Row?

The idea is starting to catch on, and is sure to be front and center next week in New York at BookExpo America, the largest book industry event in North America. The thinking is that it’s relatively easy for studios to turn publishing into a useful sideline in the e-book era. At the most basic level, they can sell scripts from films or TV shows the way Warner Bros will with its just-launched “Inside the Script” publishing initiative. It will begin by selling e-books of scripts for Casablanca, Ben-Hur, An American In Paris, and North By Northwest. But there’s no need to stop there. “Why shouldn’t every Seinfeld episode be an e-book?” asks Mike Shatzkin, CEO of The Idea Logical Company, a publishing consulting firm. The next step is to follow in the footsteps of NBC Publishing, the operation NBC Newsannounced in January to create print and e-books based on news stories and just about anything that comes from NBCUniversal. Last year, ABC introduced a Video Bookstore that offers multimedia publications for iPads. But studios have the cash, connections, and marketing muscle to do much more. They could cut out traditional publishers and sign deals with authors that blend book and movie rights. They also could commission writers to put out novelized versions of movies or TV series. Shatzkin, for one, says he plans to hit Hollywood this month to gauge studios’ interest in developing e-book strategies leading up to an October event, Publishers Launch Hollywood.

18 Comments

All great ideas that have been around for a decade but die in the studios the licensing departments who want to control all these activities.

Youth • on Jun 1, 2012 4:27 pm

So… I can use my free time to either play CoD multiplayer on my XBox 360 or I can download the script from my favorite movie (300) and read it? Hmmmmmm. Which would be more fun?

another writer • on Jun 1, 2012 4:27 pm

I’ll try not to use big words ’cause they may hurt you.

There…are…still…people…who…read.

William Goldman’s Adventures in the Screen Trade, which contains the entire script for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, has been in print for over twenty years. People who like literate scripts, whether for film or television, will love this.

Anonymous • on Jun 1, 2012 4:27 pm

How much will the writer of each script be paid in profits? Anything?
Does the WGA even have a paragraph in the basic agreement that covers such a thing? If not it will certainly be part of the next strike.

Kismo • on Jun 1, 2012 4:27 pm

How out of touch are you people???? Why not sell every episode of Seinfield as a book? Becuase no one will buy it you moron!! Why would I read something that I already watched? How about this? Instead of reselling the same shit you sold to us once already, you come up with something new to watch. That’s hollywoods job as the giant middleman it is, and if it can’t do it’s job creative people will bypass it with the internet and cut that fat old middleman right out.

Kramer • on Jun 1, 2012 4:27 pm

Lots of people would download the scripts not just to Seinfeld but to many shows. It’s a very cheap business all they have to do is scan the scripts and post them for people to pay to read.

The answer you gave to the single hypothetical suggestion I was quoted on (turning Seinfeld scripts into ebooks) is a healthy one to drive creativity. That’s part of Hollywood’s job.

But another part of Hollywood’s job is to maximize revenue and promote every property it has. When you have a known brand, some people will engage with it in manners that might seem odd or unlikely to others. Making ebooks available is cheap and easy. A lot of people walk around quoting Seinfeld scripts (sometimes even correctly) every day. I think they’d sell. The cost of finding out, if you have the rights, is zilch.

And the point is that there are a million opportunities like that to get more revenue and marketing out of lots of projects (brands) people already own and want to enhance the value of. I think when Hollywood producers, studios, networks, agents, and screenwriters understand the opportunities that ebooks offer, they’ll find lots of very creative ways to exploit them: books by characters, novelizations of back-stories. It won’t just be about delivering scripts.

PitifulPeacock • on Jun 1, 2012 4:27 pm

Hey WGA members: Ask the brainiacs who run your guild just how much of this revenue stream will go to the writers of these TV and movie scripts that the studios will now sell as e-books. Not gonna like the answer….

Rizzo51 • on Jun 1, 2012 4:27 pm

This won’t happen so fast. The reason Warner Bros started with “Casablanca” and “Ben Hur” is because the scripts were written before the WGA era, when separated rights were introduced. Unless specified otherwise in their contracts, per the WGA screenwriters control the publishing rights to their scripts. The Studios can’t publish them (meaning offer them for sale) without obtaining waivers from those writers. Moreover, there are rights issues with actors whose images may be incorporated into eBooks. As someone said in a previous post, script publication is not a new idea at all but it was never viable.

Erin • on Jun 1, 2012 4:27 pm

They don’t necessarily need the pictures of the actors. For instance I am a very big fan of Grey’s Anatomy, Supernatural, and Leverage. I would gladly pay a few bucks to see a script from recent seasons of any of those shows if they provide the draft or final script and not the production draft or shooting script. I don’t need pics of the actors because 1. I already know who the stars are and 2. I want to read the story and learn from it, not see production stills.

Publish as written • on Jun 1, 2012 4:27 pm

The problem with many published scripts is that they are not published as a script is written – the page count is off many times, throwing off screenwriters who really want to study screenplays – the Act Breaks, plot points, etc. are all timed out on specific pages (many times) and if you don’t set it up correctly, what’s the point…

Erin • on Jun 1, 2012 4:27 pm

If they either sell the drafts of the scripts or package the draft and shooting scripts then it should be alright (as in properly formatted). In fact that would be an even more useful learning tool as it would give aspiring screenwriters an opportunity to compare and contrast different versions.

Book Guy • on Jun 1, 2012 4:27 pm

I write books. Lots of books. If people think I’ll write books and just hand the IP over to Hollywood they’re out of their minds. If they think they can afford to pay me turn Hollywood ideas into books, they’re mistaken. You can get low-rent hacks to do this, but they won’t sell books. And poor-selling books will undercut any chance of getting a movie made.

Sorry, Hollywood, but you still need us — Harry Potter, Twilight, Hunger Games, The Avengers, Iron Man, Spiderman. You need us to create the worlds.

I’m just envisioning a future where the world’s best novelists will see their works mangled by the studios, just like the world’s best screenwriters do. Let’s hope this doesn’t eventually lead to that. Hollywood really needs to KEEP OUT of the publishing business for the simple reason that it will HARM the publishing business.For Hollywood, by and large, simply doesn’t produce good product.

MaryAnne • on Jun 1, 2012 4:27 pm

‘Envisioning’? Didn’t you see ‘Bonfire of the Vanities’?
As for this, a word to screenwriters that novelists already know. You never sell your work or your characters – you only LICENSE it. You let people use it in a certain way but you do not sell off your characters or work in a way that cuts you out of the revenue stream. I know of a couple naive first time novelists who got a contract that had ownership of the characters embedded in it – and what happens? You lose the right to what you create and someone else can hop on and do anything they want with your stuff. If the money is really, really great and you are kept in the revenue stream maybe it is worth it but the whole point is for your work to make money for other people.
As for selling scripts – there are few scripts that are readable works. They are meant to be performed. If i wanted to write a sitcom, reading a Seinfeld script might be helpful and I might download one. But not all of them, not even at 99 cents a hit.

Joe schmo • on Jun 1, 2012 4:27 pm

DOA. Who the hell would want to buy scripts except film students? That’s what movies are for. I’ll read novels, thank you very much. I’ll watch scripts on the screen.

joe the builder • on Jun 1, 2012 4:27 pm

I was going to a house tour but instead I bought the blue prints of the houses. blue prints are always better than the house. Ok maybe not.